chepicap.com
A businessman known for being the ex-owner of the Minnesota Vikings has been mixed up in some crypto misdeeds. Reggie Fowler was apparently involved in a scheme which processed unregulated transactions on behalf of crypto exchanges.
This isn't the first time that Fowler has been implicated in financial irregularities. He eventually lost the ownership deal for the NFL team, and control of other companies that he had run, amid claims of unpaid bills, failure to pay taxes, and more. He racked up a debt of around $60 million.
Fowler has now been charged with bank fraud, as well as operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. He and an associate allegedly ran a scheme involving lying to banks about the purpose of accounts that were being set up. They claimed that they would be used to process real estate investments, and falsified wire transfer details to cover the fact that they were processing crypto payments.
According to a statement from the U.S Department of Justice, "Reginald Fowler and Ravid Yosef allegedly ran a shadow bank that processed hundreds of millions of dollars of unregulated transactions on behalf of numerous cryptocurrency exchanges. Their organization allegedly skirted the anti-money laundering safeguards required of licensed institutions that ensure the U.S. financial system is not used for criminal purposes, and did so through lies and deceit."
Bitfinex, which has come under intense scrutiny from the U.S Attorney General recently after allegations that it used Tether reserves to cover a loss, was one of the exchanges involved in this scheme.